Reframing food sovereignty in Eastern Cuba: Informal economies and the pursuit of adequacy among small-scale farming communities

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Frederick_Dana_Honours_2025.pdf (319.01 KB)

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2025

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Frederick, Dana

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Abstract

In response to the current economic and humanitarian crisis in Cuba, causing widespread food scarcity, this study explores how small-scale farmers in Eastern Cuba respond to food inadequacy through alternative and informal food systems. Drawing on 6 weeks of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2023 and 2024, the study examines how participants employ strategies such as unsanctioned production, black market engagement, and grassroots mutual aid networks to reclaim control over their food systems, working towards a culturally and nutritionally adequate diet. While Cuba has been celebrated for its agroecological practices and state-led food sovereignty programming, this research reveals a lived reality of scarcity and economic hardship among small-scale farming communities in the Eastern provinces. The study therefore argues that the prevailing food sovereignty discourse does not accurately reflect the agency of farmers working outside of formally recognized economies. Participants’ stories reveal engagement with a diversity of informal economies to resolve food inadequacy, embodying a form of food sovereignty that is not reflected in policy-oriented discourse. In response, this analysis calls for a reframing of the current discourse to more accurately reflect the moral contradictions and agency of small-scale farmers as they actively seek to improve food access and posits that a framework of adequacy is fundamental in bridging food sovereignty discourse with lived practices in the context of Eastern Cuba. Thus, the experiences of the small-scale farmers in this study are presented as a critical lens through which the limitations and contradictions of current food sovereignty narratives may be assessed.

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food sovereignty, food adequacy, Cuba, small-scale farming, informal economies, food security

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https://hdl.handle.net/1828/22424

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Undergraduate Honours Papers (Anthropology)
 
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